what if the chains of your past are looser than you think?
breaking free from the bondage of repetition compulsion
When I first started down my own unique path of self-knowledge and healing, something drew me to the Tarot. I was so caught in my own head that meditation and visualization were incredibly difficult for me, so when I began pulling a card each morning to start my day, the powerful imagery and symbolism provided a sense of grounding for me that I didn’t know I was missing. I was hooked.
I don’t draw a daily card to predict my future – that’s not what the Tarot is for (although it’s a common misconception).
Dive into the Tarot, especially Rider-Waite-Smith deck, masterfully illustrated by Pamela Coleman Smith, and you’re not just flipping through a deck of cards. You’re embarking on a journey through the human psyche.
Each card is a world unto itself, presenting themes and struggles universal to our human condition. Their real magic isn’t in predicting the future at all – it’s in the interpretation. It’s how the same card, drawn at different points in your healing journey, can provide completely new insights and reveal unique aspects you hadn’t taken notice of before.
I’ve found myself lost in these archetypal images more times than I can count. It’s like the Tarot holds up a mirror, reflecting not just who we are, but who we might become, if we dare to look closely and listen deeply enough. This daily practice has given me an embodied tool to truly make the unconscious, conscious.
The Devil You Know
I’ll never forget the first time I pulled The Devil in my daily reading. The imagery on this card (similar to The Ten of Swords and The Tower) tends to leave any Tarot newbie who pulls it to immediately think, “well… this can’t be good.”
I mean, just look at it:
The name alone is enough to send a shiver down your spine.
When it comes to the imagery, though, the Devil himself is front and center, staring directly into your soul. (Tbh, I think he kind of looks like Grumpy Cat. Seriously. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.)
Standing in front of our Grumpy-Cat-Devil are two figures, seemingly bound to him for all of eternity. It’s a grim-as-hell scene, to be sure.
But look more closely at those heavy iron chains around the necks of the two figures. They’re so loose, it’s almost like they could just… lift them off, and walk off into the unknown. Away from the burning hellfire and their perpetual servitude to this demonic entity.
But they don’t.
They stay, bound not by the iron chains, but by something else. Something unseen. Something beyond their realm of conscious awareness.
This imagery, while initially dark and foreboding, carries within it one of the most life-changing and liberating esoteric messages out of any other card in the deck. It asks us to inspect our own bindings. Are our chains really iron clad and inescapable? Or are they – upon closer inspection – a lot looser than we think?
This is how The Devil card went from being the card I feared the most into one of my all-time favorites and a source of powerful insight and liberation.
This card, in all its shadowy and foreboding glory, is here to force us to get real with ourselves: what’s really keeping us here, stuck in this seemingly endless circle-jerk of suffering? Is it fear, comfort in the known pain, or perhaps that the illusion that we have no other choice but to suffer for eternity?
It reminds me of something my Dad used to say in a tone of existential disillusionment masked as dark humor:
“Life sucks, and then you die.”
I don’t think my Dad realized how loose his chains were, either.
But here’s the thing. If it was so simple, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now writing this article after years of self-imposed suffering. Lifting those chains up off our own necks might be the hardest and most emotionally and physically difficult task we’ll ever undertake, but it’s the only thing that will allow us to walk away.
First, we have to recognize that the chains are even there in the first place.
Right Back Where I Started
Loyal listeners of my podcast know that I’m currently in the middle of recording an in-depth series exploring the invisible wounds left on the psyche as a result of childhood emotional neglect (CEN.)
One of my favorite authors, Pete Walker, believes that emotional neglect is the 'core wound' in complex-PTSD, and that by neglecting to extensively examine the ways in which we deny and minimize its impacts in our lives as adults, we stay locked in patterns of unnecessary suffering and emotional flashbacks.
The price we pay for shoving down and repressing the pain of growing up in environments where we were emotionally and spiritually starved, instead of facing it head-on, is steep.
We find ourselves repeating the same self-sabotaging behaviors, spiraling into similar types of avoidant or abusive friendships or partnerships (that always seem to blow up in our faces), and consistently being engulfed by those all-too-familiar feelings of emptiness and despair.
Here’s the thing: the mental programming driving you to repeat these patterns and behaviors was, at one point, adaptive. It kept you safe. You likely grew up marinating in an environment where – in order to secure the love and validation of your caregivers (which was necessary for your survival) – you had to accept a counterfeit version of love. You had to accept abuses of power and injustices that didn’t sit well with your soul. You had to sit with terrifyingly big feelings that you had no idea how to navigate all alone.
So, you swallowed those big feelings and changed who you were to survive. You became comfortable in your chains. You had to. You had no choice. You were a child.
Something that many of us forget, though, is that the same thought patterns and behavior that helped us survive as children are often exactly what keeps us unconsciously locked in patterns of self-imposed suffering as adults.
Imaginary Cages
The other day, my husband, Zaz, sent me a video and encouraged me to watch it. 'It reminded me of you,' he said, with no additional comment.
He had been sensing that creating this recent podcast series on childhood emotional neglect had been resurfacing some deep-seated pain for me. He can tell when this is starting to happen because I begin to drift into a far-off emotional place, distant and empty.
In the video, we meet Ina, a bear who spent 20 agonizing years confined in her minuscule cage in a zoo located in the Romanian city of Piatra Neamț. Ina’s cage was so restrictive that she could do nothing but pace in tight, endless circles—a physical manifestation of her deep psychological torment. Behavior she was forced to adopt and repeat to survive her horrific conditions.
The video itself captures the moment Ina has finally been released into a spacious bear sanctuary by a local non-profit. Despite being surrounded by an expanse of gorgeous woodlands, Ina is found circling relentlessly, as if still trapped within the invisible walls of her past confinement.
The sanctuary’s team notes that, although Ina has been physically freed since 2014, there are days when she lapses back into her circling behavior, imprisoned by a cage that no longer exists except within her own mind.
'Ina is free, but her mind is captive,' the sanctuary spokesperson said, underlining the tragic condition so many of us are familiar with: being trapped in patterns of suffering and limitation that we’ve internalized to the point of invisibility. Watching this video of Ina, pacing in her familiar circles, completely unaware of her newfound freedom, I saw myself. Zaz was right.
This realization was followed by new waves of gulping sobs of sadness and rage that I thought were all cried out by now.
Turns out I had gotten so comfortable in my chains again, that I’d forgotten they were even there.
Pain Feels Safer Than Freedom
All too often, we continue to unknowingly slap familiar constraints on ourselves—those invisible shackles made of our past pains, fears, and the twisted comfort of familiarity.
These beliefs and behaviors are so deeply ingrained in us that they feel like second nature. But here’s the thing about nature: through the light of conscious awareness and sheer will, it can be nurtured in an entirely different direction.
Since we’ve been exploring the theme of bondage (and not the fun, kinky kind), another way we keep ourselves shackled to self-destructive patterns of relating is through something called trauma-bonding.
A trauma bond is a strong emotional connection that can develop between ourselves and another person, particularly in interpersonal dynamics where there is an imbalance of power or where cycles of abuse/mistreatment are punctuated by periods of unexpected kindness.
The intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates those powerful emotional bonds that feel impossible to break free from.
Understanding the trauma-bonding cycle is crucial in understanding why we might find ourselves repeatedly in the same kinds of toxic friendships and relationships. Without even knowing it, we’re returning to our invisible cages.
Abuse and neglect feel comfortable. It’s all we’ve ever known.
This twisted dance has a name that sounds just about as ominous as it feels: Repetition Compulsion—a psychological phenomenon where an individual repeatedly puts themselves in situations that recreate or mirror past traumas or painful experiences. This concept, originally identified by Sigmund Freud, suggests that we are unconsciously driven to re-live our past traumas in an attempt to resolve them or achieve a different outcome.
Like a confused bird flying repeatedly into a freshly-cleaned glass window—helpless to know its efforts to break through are fruitless—when engaged in repetition compulsion, we continue sleepwalking through our lives, trying to “fix” what went wrong in the past by engaging in similar situations in the present, even as we continue to get hurt in the exact same ways, over and over again.
Why play the same heartbreaking song on repeat, hoping for a different ending? The track doesn’t change until you lift the needle on the record player yourself.
For someone who hasn’t experienced childhood trauma through the invisible wounds of emotional neglect and abandonment, it can be hard to understand why anyone would reject healthy love and liberation for the familiarity of abuse and captivity.
The core truth is this: Just like Ina the bear pacing endlessly in her imagined cage, the known, no matter how painful, can feel safer than the vast, uncharted territory of freedom.
Liberation is right there, the door is wide open, yet we continue to pace back and forth, bound by the ghosts of our past. It’s not that we love the pain; it’s the fear of what lies beyond it that paralyzes us.
As the old saying goes, “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.
Examining My Chains
For me, a profound psychological shift occurred when I realized that the cages I’ve resigned myself to my entire life—those pens of limitation and broken dreams—were never locked in the first place.
Liberation wasn’t some distant concept that I’d never know for myself, but a tangible state of being that was just waiting for me to make the conscious decision to reach out and grasp it and admit to myself that I deserved it.
I realized that my chains were personalized engravings of past pains, of other people’s expectations, of the comfort found in the predictability of crumbs of counterfeit love.
I decided to sit down with my chains. I examined them and felt their weight. And then, link by heavy link, I questioned their necessity. Is this one a protection or a prison?
The moment I began this process, liberation no longer felt like an if—it became a when.
This allowed me to see a light at the end of the tunnel. My muscles might be too weak right now to lift the chains off in one fell swoop, but I could begin the strengthening process. This meant crafting a new narrative.
I’m just now beginning to dare to picture what it might be like to step beyond my self-sabotaging patterns, those well-worn grooves in my story that have kept me circling like Ina in her imaginary enclosure.
And then it hit me: my cage was already unlocked. I’ve been free for a lot longer than I realized.
Dare To Break Free
I have a challenge for you. Right here, right now.
Ask yourself in this very moment: what might it be like to craft boundaries defined by your authentic self, where relationships and behaviors are no longer echoes of your past hurts, but reflections of your truest desires? This life—this entirely new story of self-respect and safe love—is calling out to you—will you answer?
Embracing the discomfort of new ways of being, the raw unfamiliarity of the unexplored, is scary. It’s supposed to be.
Every inch of your being will scream to return to what it knows, to the “safe” confines of your old patterns of repetition compulsion. But what lies beyond in the wild unknown holds the promise of growth, of blossoming in ways you likely can’t even imagine from where you’re sitting right now.
Just as a terrified laboring mother breathes through each contraction, you too, can breathe through the surges of discomfort as you give birth to your new life.
So, here you stand, at the terrifying edge of your perceived limitations, peering into the unknown. This cycle you find yourself caught in is tragic, but it’s also profoundly human. The only thing required to break free is the light of your conscious awareness.
Are you going to keep pacing in circles, trapped in your invisible cage? Or are you going to take the leap into the freedom that’s been waiting for you all along? The choice, as always, is yours.
But remember, those rusted-out iron chains around your neck? They’re a hell of a lot looser than you think.
and now, for the links for my paid readers.
Below the paywall line, I’ve curated some additional links and resources specifically for my paid Substack subscribers. These materials are designed to help you dive deeper into the topics we've discussed in the post and offer practical ways to integrate these insights into your real life.
In this post, the links will include further exploration of the following concepts:
✧ How to use the Tarot for self-reflection and healing
✧ Diving into archetypes and symbolic imagery
✧ Understanding childhood emotional neglect as a “core wound”
✧ Identifying trauma-bonding and patterns of repetition compulsion
✧ Additional unrelated articles/videos that have helped me along my path this month
Un-paid readers won’t see anything below this point. If you’d like to unlock these additional resources, consider upgrading your subscription for just $5/month.
If you’re not quite ready to upgrade, why not take a moment to subscribe to my podcast? It’s free to listen via all major podcast streaming platforms via backfromtheborderline.com. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Oh, and before I forget. I was recently a guest on my friend Michael’s podcast, Third Eye Drops to talk about the most life-changing and magical experience of my life.
You can check that interview out below:
And now, onto the good stuff.
Now that it’s just us, enjoy diving down the rabbit hole…
Save a few of the freebies that sound interesting and listen to them throughout the month until the next post. Paid resources are marked with a ($).
✧ [$] Tarot for Your Self: A Workbook for the Inward Journey by Mary Greer [#1 resource I recommend for anyone starting to dive into the Tarot who plans to mainly read for themselves - Mary Greer is the current GRAND DAME of Tarot]
✧ [YouTube] Archetypes, Myth, and Truth with Mary K. Greer
✧ [This Jungian Life Podcast Episode] ARCHETYPAL IMAGES: the soul's language
✧ [Free PDF article] Emotional Neglect and Complex PTSD By Pete Walker
✧ [YouTube] Pete Walker - Healing Complex PTSD
✧ [YouTube] How to Fully Feel with Pete Walker
✧ [YouTube] Childhood Emotional Neglect: The Invisible Experience with Dr. Jonice Webb
Here are a few additional things that I’ve found useful this month:
✧ [$] Current read: The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination by Jessica Benjamin
✧ [$] Current read: Barefoot on Holy Ground by Gloria Karpinski
✧ [$] Current read: Meaning in Absurdity: What Bizarre Phenomena Can Tell Us About the Nature of Reality by Bernardo Kastrup
✧ [YouTube] Heart Space: Releasing Stored Trauma | Trauma Informed Yoga
✧ [YouTube] The problem with social media no-one is talking about
That should keep you busy until the next one, you emotional deep diver, you.
Toodles!
Yesyesyesyes Taror content please and yes! 🔮 do you know Kippi's Kwest on youtube? He does Tarot school episodes one card per video. His humor for me was something to get used to but nevertheless he has great insights and always makes notes on the context and the esotheric meanings of each card.